Everything Is a Pitch Now. I Built a Way to Check Before I Buy.

Somewhere in the last few years, life turned into a living commercial.

I’m not exaggerating. Between sports betting apps, trading courses, book-publishing services, and coaching offers that claim to change your life in ninety days, I feel like I can’t scroll for thirty seconds without somebody trying to sell me something.

I read a book titled Sell or Be Sold by Grant Cardone a while back, and as you can tell from the title, it’s about sales and how if you’re not selling anything, you can and will be sold anything. Frankly, it feels more true now than when I first picked it up. Everywhere you turn, somebody has an offer. And it’s never just an offer. It’s an offer with a countdown timer, a limited number of spots, and a version of urgency designed to make you decide before you think.

After a while, it gets exhausting.

Not because every offer is bad. A lot of them are legitimate. That is actually part of the problem. It is not always easy to separate “this is an obvious scam” from “this is a real product, but I don’t need it.”

Those are two completely different questions, and most of us have only been trained to ask the first one.

I learned that the hard way. More than once.

The lessons that cost me

One early lesson came from a trading-alert service whose polished sales pitch created more confidence than the evidence supported. It promised a proven system that would sharpen my entries and exits, and although I had done some homework, I let the strength of the call outweigh my remaining questions.

The alerts never delivered the value I expected, and when I tried to walk away, canceling turned into a drawn-out mess involving multiple payment companies and far more of my time than it should have.

Then there was another trading service that became an even more expensive lesson.

This one was sold as a serious edge, structured and proven. I paid a real amount of money for it, split between a direct payment and financing. The signals underperformed. Worse, I could never clearly answer the question that should have come before I ever picked up the phone:

What am I getting here that I cannot already get from the tools, research, and analysis I already have?

When I tried to exit, the financing structure turned what should have been a simple cancellation into a multi-party dispute, with conditions attached to any refund. That one is still, hands down, the worst purchase experience I have ever had.

I also tried a book research tool that offered specialized market intelligence for authors. It cost nearly two hundred dollars and was sold as a lifetime deal, which made it feel like even more of a bargain.

Afterward, I ran the same type of request through ChatGPT and received results that were just as useful, sometimes better.

What I thought I was paying for was specialized insight. What I received felt more like repackaged AI output with a nicer wrapper.

The bigger lesson was that an offer does not have to be an obvious scam to become a bad purchase. Sometimes the company is real, and the product exists, but the value still does not match the price, the promise, or what you already have.

What actually worked

Not everything I have paid for has been a letdown.

Sophia.org has been one of the clearest wins I have had because I went into it with a specific goal: complete transferable college courses before starting at Purdue Global, save time, and reduce the overall cost of earning my degree.

So far, it has done exactly what I expected.

The courses are accessible, self-paced, and tied to a measurable outcome. I am not paying for vague motivation, a fancy dashboard, or the possibility of results. I am completing real coursework that can move me closer to graduation.

There was no aggressive sales call and no exaggerated promise. The price was clear. The deliverable was clear. The work required from me was clear. Success could be measured.

The same is true for the AI tools I use regularly.

ChatGPT and Claude earn their cost every month because I actually use them across writing, research, business planning, app development, and routine decision-making. They are not subscriptions sitting untouched in the background. They have become part of how I work.

The difference between the wins and the regrets was not simply a matter of price. It was whether the product had a clear job, delivered something measurable, and added value I did not already have.

Turning “Is this a scam?” into a better question

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I noticed I had already begun to change how I approached offers.

Instead of only asking:

Is this legitimate?

I started using AI to ask better questions:

What am I actually getting?

Do I already own tools that can do this?

What would make this worth the price?

What questions should I ask before buying?

What are the hidden costs, limitations, or risks?

That process helped slow everything down.

A sales call usually does not want you to slow down. A countdown timer definitely does not want you to slow down. The whole point of urgency is to keep you moving before doubt has time to catch up.

AI gave me a way to step outside that pressure, organize the evidence, challenge the claims, compare alternatives, and think about the purchase in the context of what I already had.

The problem was that I had to rebuild that process from scratch every single time.

I had to explain what tools I already used, what I was trying to accomplish, what my budget looked like, and what I expected the product or service to do for me. Then I had to keep asking follow-up questions to move from a general summary to an actual decision.

Sometimes that worked well. Sometimes the answers were too broad, too cautious, or inconsistent. One conversation might lean toward buying, while another might focus mainly on the risks.

And unless I knew exactly what to ask, important things could still get missed, like overlap with tools I already owned, unclear refund terms, hidden add-ons, or whether the offer actually added anything new.

That gap is what became ChecksWorth.

What ChecksWorth actually does

The idea is simple.

You upload screenshots or photos, paste a link, or describe the offer in your own words.

ChecksWorth then asks a few questions about your goals, budget, experience, and tools you already use. From there, it breaks the offer down into plain language:

• What you are actually buying
• Where it may overlap with what you already have
• Claims that are unclear, unsupported, or difficult to verify
• Information that is missing
• Green flags worth noting
• Real concerns
• Questions to ask the seller
• Better paths you may not have considered
• A recommended next move

I am not trying to build something that tells you everything is a scam.

I am also not trying to build something that talks you out of every purchase.

The goal is to help you slow down long enough to understand whether the offer is worth it for you.

Just as important, I want the recommendation to remain independent. The goal is not to push users toward whichever product pays the best commission. It is to explain what the available evidence supports, what is still uncertain, and whether the offer appears to fit that particular person.

I want people to leave ChecksWorth with the same feeling they get when they catch a great deal or avoid getting overcharged.

Sharp. Relieved. A little proud.

Sometimes the win is buying with confidence because you finally understand what you are paying for.

Sometimes the win is finding a better option.

Sometimes the win is realizing you already own the solution and keeping your money in your pocket.

Either way, I want the user to think:

Good thing I checked first.

Who this is for right now

Right now, ChecksWorth is built for creators, side-hustlers, freelancers, and early-stage entrepreneurs evaluating the same kinds of offers that constantly land in my own inbox:

• AI tools
• SaaS subscriptions
• Online courses
• Coaching programs
• Creator services
• Marketing services
• Business opportunities

I started here because I live here.

I am not building for a market I studied from a distance. I am an author, coach, content creator, podcaster, and entrepreneur who has spent real money trying to find tools that help turn ideas into finished work and income.

I understand the excitement of finding something that looks like it could finally make the process easier.

I also understand the disappointment of realizing that the “missing piece” was mostly another dashboard, another report, or another version of something I already had.

Eventually, I want ChecksWorth to help general consumers evaluate all kinds of purchases, including cars, repairs, memberships, and everyday services.

But I had to start somewhere, and it made sense to begin with a group whose buying habits, frustrations, and goals I already understand.

What building it has taught me

The biggest investment so far has been time.

I have spent hours working through the idea, figuring out what problem the app should actually solve, testing different versions, reviewing the results, changing the name, building forms, creating a landing page, writing instructions, and preparing everything for private beta testing.

The hardest part has not been one technical obstacle.

It has been pushing through all the small places where I usually get stuck.

The name.

The logo.

The wording.

The landing page.

The testing flow.

The question of where to find users.

Each one felt like its own separate obstacle.

There has also been a lot of mental energy involved. I have had to keep asking whether the idea is useful, whether the app is doing enough, whether I am overbuilding, and whether I am simply finding another reason not to put it in front of people.

What feels different this time is that I kept going.

I now have a working app on my phone, a landing page, an application form, a feedback survey, testing instructions, and real people being invited to use it.

Building the app was only one part of the work. Turning it into something another person can understand, access, test, and respond to has taken just as much effort, maybe more.

The biggest thing I have learned is that I am capable of doing more than I sometimes give myself credit for.

That has been one of the most fulfilling parts of the entire process.

What I need from you

ChecksWorth is in private beta right now, and I am looking for people who are actually sitting on a real decision.

Not someone testing it just to be nice to me.

Someone with an actual offer in front of them right now. An AI tool, a course, a coaching program, a subscription, a creator service, or something else they are genuinely unsure about.

Bring the messy stuff:

• Screenshots
• Sales pages
• Links
• Pricing
• Testimonials
• Ambiguous promises
• Fine print

Then tell me the truth.

Did ChecksWorth understand the offer?

Did the questions make sense?

Did it notice something you had not considered?

Did it recognize overlap with tools or services you already use?

Did the verdict feel personal or generic?

Did it help you make a clearer decision?

Would you use it again before spending money, or would you still rather open ChatGPT, search Google, or ask a friend?

I do not need people to tell me the idea is cool.

I need people willing to tell me what is confusing, slow, inaccurate, repetitive, missing, or unhelpful.

I am nervous about all of it, if I am honest. Whether people will use it. Whether they will find it. Whether the product will feel as useful to someone else as it feels to me.

But I am also having fun building something from a problem I have actually lived.

And I would rather find out now, from real people, whether it is actually useful.

If you have an offer sitting in front of you and you are not sure whether it is worth it, visit trychecksworth.com and apply for the private beta.

Bring the real thing you are deciding on.

I want the honest answer, not the nice one.